FC: More on FTC commissioners and the odds of new privacy laws

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

If one were to read a little into this, it would be tempting to conclude 
that the FTC now has three of five commissioners -- a majority -- in favor 
of taking a laissez-faire approach towards regulating the private sector's 
data collection practices. This would be a dramatic change from May 2000, 
when a majority insisted the agency needed more authority from Congress 
(http://www.politechbot.com/p-01180.html). The third commissioner I'm 
thinking of is, of course, chairman Tim Muris, a law and econ scholar who 
has argued that the Fair Credit Reporting Act was unconstitutional 
(http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/166424.html) and is said to take a dim 
view of aggressive new regulations.

More on FTC Commissioner Swindle's views on privacy:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=swindle
And an audio interview I did with Swindle a few months ago:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,42462,00.html

Below message forwarded with permission.

-Declan

*********

Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 14:14:04 -0400
From: "Daniel Caprio" <dcaprio () ftc gov>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: FTC commish, Gephardt oppose new privacy laws; Echelon
        update

Declan,

The message from Rep. Gephardt that industry needs to step up and protect 
online privacy is the same message that Comm. Swindle has been delivering 
for quite some time.


Dan Caprio
FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Room 548
Washington, DC 20580
202.326.2414




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